Vince Gennaro on the Possible Decline of MLB Salaries

The Wall Street Journal,
Dec 15, 2015

Vince Gennaro, director of the M.S. in Sports Management program, was featured in an article for The Wall Street Journal. The piece, titled “The $1 Million-a-Start Pitcher,” discusses the rapidly increasing salaries of pitchers.

With paychecks reaching as high as $217 million for players such as David Price, a pitcher for the Boston Red Sox, sports experts wonder when the salary bubble will burst.

Recently, economists have warned about the end of these often inflated paychecks. The predicted halt to the rise in revenue and salaries for Major League Baseball (MLB) has to do with cord-cutting – a decrease in cable television subscriptions.

Gennaro predicts that the economic future of MLB is up to the consumer. “These are major strategic issues that the consumer is going to have a large vote in,” he said.

Gennaro also questions whether the networks have a clear view of the potential threat to their business. “Are the networks reading the market right? Are they reading the consumer right?” For the sake of their industry and that of MLB, he encourages cable networks to ponder these questions moving forward.